“I’m here,” she said.

Ezra took two quick steps toward her, then turned to glance behind him.

“You’re not being followed if that’s what you’re wondering,” Frankie said because she just couldn’t help herself.

“What were you thinking?” he said, his flawless face going red, his ears turning a bright shade of pink. “You can’t just . . . you can’t just do that to a person!”

“Kiss you? Marry you? What? I need to know which calamity you’re referencing.”

“Don’t turn this into a joke, Frankie!” He really was furious now, and Frankie had so rarely seen Ezra genuinely rageful that she didn’t know what to do or how to respond. “This is exactly like you: you can’t leave well enough alone. You just come in, stir up shit, and press the escape button and boom, you’re gone.” He inhaled, then blew the air out of his nose. “I won’t do it. I won’t have it. So seriously, I just wanted to tell you to leave me alone. Now. Forever.”

Frankie started to protest. She felt like she should at least be able to launch a defense. The kiss had been mutual, even if she’d been the one to start it. So excuse her if he now wanted to pretend otherwise.

Ezra saw her sorting through an explanation. She could read it on his face.

“Don’t.” He held up his hands as if she were approaching him again. “Just don’t.”

“Fine!” she said. “Let’s call this what it was: a mistake. A massive, miscalculated, decade-old mistake.”

Ezra shook his head as if he pitied her, which she really didn’t think was fair, and then said: “Goodbye forever, Frankie Harriman.” And then he turned to go. He had rounded the corner when Frankie remembered the ring.

“Hey!” she called after him. “Hey!” She scurried to keep up, turning the corner back to the main artery of the backstage. “Ezra!” She had to raise her voice now, above the blare of “Y.M.C.A.” and the waiters and the clinking of plates and glasses. “Ezra!”

He stopped but didn’t turn, which Frankie found enraging, bordering on insulting. Despite what she had just said—which she hadn’t really meant and was just saying to be provocative; my God, surely, Ezra knew that!—they had a whole history between them, a vast, wide-open love for each other that crumbled into wreckage, and yes, she bore half of the responsibility. But he could turn to face her. He could look her in the eye.

“Fine!” She said it too loudly, and a few of the waiters stopped loading trays with tiny appetizers and stared. “Of course this is how it would end a second time!”

Now he spun toward her. “End? End? This was not a thing. We were not a thing a second time! The last time I saw you, Frankie, you made it extremely clear that we were barely a thing the first time. You said no. Do I need to remind you? You. Said. No.”